Warning meters in 300,000 homes could stop working

Typical poor and Miss information.  BBC news is becoming more like getting the news from YouTube.  Can'y always be trusted and half of the time is not verified.



From my understanding what will happen is the meter will charge the customer at the higher rate permanently.  I bet an enconomy 7 heater at 7pence per kWh will not seem so economy at 40pence per kWh

Typical poor and Miss information.  BBC news is becoming more like getting the news from YouTube.  Can'y always be trusted and half of the time is not verified.



From my understanding what will happen is the meter will charge the customer at the higher rate permanently.  I bet an enconomy 7 heater at 7pence per kWh will not seem so economy at 40pence per kWh

It's the BBC who are running the RTS transmitter that's about to be switched off!

You would think that someone would have a copy of the RTS specification, and could say definitively what the receivers will do when the signal is turned off.  I was under the impression that they could be sent a program, which they would continue to follow until told otherwise.

Simon Barker said:

It's the BBC who are running the RTS transmitter that's about to be switched off!

No, it’s not as the BBC do not own or operate any transmitters.

The Wychbold station is owned and operated by Arqiva.

As well as switching the meter from the higher to the lower rate, the RTS also connects the off-peak equipment ie. the night storage heaters and the water heater.  So it is true to say these houses would lose heating and hot water.

Sergio Fernandez said:

Typical poor and Miss information.  BBC news is becoming more like getting the news from YouTube.  Can'y always be trusted and half of the time is not verified.



From my understanding what will happen is the meter will charge the customer at the higher rate permanently.  I bet an enconomy 7 heater at 7pence per kWh will not seem so economy at 40pence per kWh

No, the issues presented in this report (and which were claimed by the quoted sources, not by the BBC) are theoretically correct, see:

https://www.energynetworks.org/industry/engineering-and-technical-programmes/radio-teleswitch

A 'simple teleswitch' as defined here could indeed leave the householder without heating or with permanent heating depending on, presumably, what time the signal was turned off.

Now, how many households have a 'simple' teleswitch is of course the question...

Andy Millar said:

Now, how many households have a 'simple' teleswitch is of course the question...

That is a very good question Andy.  Time will tell.

As a side note I hope that when the Teleswitch is swapped out for a smart meter that actually works as intended they install a dual pole isolator (post meter and pre CU/DB) for the dwelling FOC.so the next CU/DB change IT complies with EAWR when the electrician works on it.

they install a dual pole isolator (post meter and pre CU/DB) for the dwelling FOC.so the next CU/DB change IT complies with EAWR when the electrician works on it.

That was talked about when the smart meter rollout was about to start - even the possibility of spec'ing the new meters to have an in-built isolator (a few did already). But it seems the suppliers didn't want the extra cost, and claim it's perfectly safe for electricians - they just need to ring up and book an engineer to come out and pull the fuse for them (for which they charge...).

   - Andy.

I think you're right. The meter registers and customer's load aren't directly switched by the radio signals. Instead, the radio is used to load the meter with a switching regime. When those old valves at the transmitter finally fail, nobody will lose supplies and nobody will get charged at the higher rate for off-peak load, everything just carries on as if it were a dumb economy seven meter. The clever people who designed this system made it resilient